Man killed after leaping from platform into oncoming train in Kobe

I feel for the train driver and commuters waiting on the platform - and for the family of this man. They may well end up being held financially responsible by commuters angry at missing meetings and losing work. It happen in Japan.

Sad for the man, but there are always a million better options than risking the lives of innocent people by jumping in front of a train.

I never understood why people do this! There are a million other ways to kill yourself. I feel bad for the train driver.

This scenario must be so traumatic for anybody who witnesses it. I’m actually a little surprised it made the news. It happens quite regularly in Tokyo.

If you or someone you know is in Japan and having suicidal thoughts, there are people who can provide counseling. Click here for more info.

There are also people who will join you and help you kill yourself, sadly.

The worst part about these absolutely selfish cowards doing this is that they can't be charged afterwards. I feel very sorry for the man's family, and the driver and those who witness and otherwise suffered as a result of the man's actions.

Whenever I'm in Japan and at a railway station, or even on the train this is always at the back of my mind: is someone going to kill themselves and I'll see it?

There are always solutions to every problem - topping yourself should never be an option.

Five innocent injured, enormous property damages, paralysis of public tranportation.... it's not really a suicide but almost like a terror act trying to deliver some messages to the public. Though it's hard to prevent, we may need to analyse phenomena in a different angle and take action accordingly.

I was 45 minutes late for work because of this loser.

ZorotoToday  04:39 pm JST

I am a bit confused by why this is news. This happens multiple times a day all over Japan.

Really? Where can I read about this happening multiple times per day?

BurakuminDesToday  04:25 pm JST

I feel for the train driver and commuters waiting on the platform - and for the family of this man.

We all do.

They may well end up being held financially responsible by commuters angry at missing meetings and losing work. It happen in Japan.

Any documented cases of this?

There is a drive (not fast enough) to line the platforms with barriers-my local station is protected with them.

Motomachi and Kobe stations need them quickly-JR needs to speed up the work...

Any documented cases of this?

Google is your friend.

he jumped from a platform and hit an oncoming train

"and was hit by an oncoming train"?

Standard reporting. I wish we hear more about the particulars of the jumper. Why they did it, what was their unbearable situation. A help line is OK, but really does not help society understand what leads people to jump in front of that train.

I wish we would hear more....

When I first came to Japan, I heard about such incidents and was sadden to hear about them. It was pretty shocking.

But after living here for years and missing appointments and even having to pay additional fees in missed flights so many times because of said jumpers, I no longer have any remorse for these individuals. I actually have a disdain for such actions.

There are so many other ways to take your own life, don't make others pay for your decisions. There could be innocent children witnessing that crap. Definitely innocent train drivers who are just trying to earn a living.

Keep it private and to your self. Or just plain man up!

Some people are asking why this is newsworthy, but that’s because part of the story is missing from this article.

The local news has reported that one of the injured passengers had his arm broken, because the jumper went not only through the front glass of the train, but also the glass at the back of the driver’s cabin and head butted the poor passenger just minding his own business on his way to work.

Now that’s surely not something that happens in Tokyo every day.

@gokai_wo_maneku:

No, in this case it was he who hit the train. Your version makes it sound like an accident.

@kurisupisu

The problem is that even the places where they are installed, such as Rokkomichi, they are only installing them on the inner side of the platform where the local trains stop, not the outer platform where the express trains rush by.

@expat

Technically, they invoice the estate of the deceased person, which means it comes from what the family would have inherited.

Difficult to understand without more background details. 42, employed and in Tokyo, everyone of us would surely have other much more pleasant ideas to let every day end than jumping into an incoming commuter train already early in the morning. lol

@smithinjspan

My brother committed suicide by jumping from an overpass some 20m to the freeway below. Sometimes I wake up in the middle night thinking how alone he must have felt in his final moments. I wonder what he was thinking as he presumably paced up and down working up the courage to jump. That selfish coward!

Don't get why this is National news. It's become a regular almost weekly occurrence on my train line going in to Tokyo.

bobcatfish: "My brother committed suicide by jumping from an overpass some 20m to the freeway below. Sometimes I wake up in the middle night thinking how alone he must have felt in his final moments."

Did your brother fly through a car windshield and injure the driver of said car and other passengers? Because this guy did, and what's more, you admit your brother's suicide haunts you and you struggle with it, for which I am sorry for YOU, but not for him -- he made you feel that way.

"That selfish coward!"

Your words, not mine. I don't know the details of your brother's case. If he, in his decision to take his own life, took others with him or even injured them, and even for what he's done to you and the rest of his family in killing himself, not have the right to call him selfish? What do you say to the person who had his arm broken by this jumper? You going to say the jumper was NOT a coward and was thinking of the others he may well hurt and just decided he himself was more important (the very definition of selfishness)?

bobcatfish: I truly believe as a society we need to do more to help each other and provide services, free of charge, to promote wellness and deal with people who have mental issues and/or suffer from depression. Suicide should not be considered the best way out of any situation, and I applaud those with the courage to seek out help. I do not pity people who in their final act cause others so much pain and physical suffering so they can stop theirs.

FYI to all the commenters saying "why is this news?"

It's because it is newsworthy. Just as a child getting hit by a truck is newsworthy. Or, a woman killed by an ex-boyfriend is newsworthy. Or, an old woman defrauded of a million yen is newsworthy.

Even if a type of news event happens somewhat often, it is still a news event.

Standard reporting. I wish we hear more about the particulars of the jumper. Why they did it, what was their unbearable situation. A help line is OK, but really does not help society understand what leads people to jump in front of that train.

Suicide news is highly sensitive. It could lead to a copycat tragedy. The WHO has provided media professionals some guideline for responsible reporting. For instance, it is recommended that incident descriptions and backgrounds be brief and carefully worded.

Investigative follow-up stories don't necessarily have to comply with the guideline. People are free to retrieve more info by themselves.

FYI to all the commenters saying "why is this news?"

People can be perverse and some seek any reason to complain. If JT and others did not report such suicides, someone would likely ask "why aren't they tell us about these incidents" and "what are they trying to hide?"

Some commentators here seem to feel that suicidal people should be more considerate and not jump in front of trains, and should go find a nice tree out in the woods instead.

Suicidal people are in extreme mental distress. They are not thinking normally. They are about to take their own life after all. If this man couldn't think to go to a hospital to seek help, he's certainly not going to be rational about his suicide method.

That day a person in terrible mental anguish couldn't live anymore for some reason that we cannot fathom. Unfortunately, he involved and badly affected others with is method. If he were mentally healthy, he would not have.

To all of the "happy thinkers" here who feel nothing but 'inconvenience' at the death of a beyond desperate fellow Human being, I salute you. You, your mentalities, having to live with the shallow, casually brutal minds which do not see other Human beings but see only their own narrow judgements, see kindness and understanding as weak, are the basal conditions which turn sensitive people against Humanity and against Life. They see the emptiness in these husks filled only with their own confidence in the 'truth' they have been taught, believe wholly, and never stop to question even when their 'truths' are obvious lies. I believe it is fair to say that people do not 'kill themselves' but are killed by the untreated cruelties and baseness of Human life itself, of having to live with Humans who have no souls, no insight, no sadness at the Human condition we see in our World. After all, there is a social ladder to climb, people to impress, money to be made or taken by whatever means work, so who has time to consider the abysses which anyone can fall into by chance alone, much more what is heaped upon them if they do. Absolute and willful blindness to Human pain... The most disappointing thing about being Human is Humanity itself.

@noriahojanen, I agree. People who jump in front of trains to kill themselves should be treated as terrorists. If the Japanese government (and society) grew up and recognized that fact, and publicized it as a terrorist action, people would stop jumping in front of trains. Time for the litmus test. But Japanese politicians are gutless, and the problem will continue for decades before someone wakes up to the fact that there's a way to stop it. Collectively. Mentally.

Ricky SanchezFeb. 26  04:30 pm JST

I never understood why people do this!

It's a good thig that you don't understand. This means that you don't have thoughts of killing yourself.

I feel like people seeing the man hit by train had had a big trauma or something...For me I really do not like to see that kind of scene.

I feel like the man could choose the other way of killing himself because that way of doing it is making a lot of people get traumatic and put a lot of burden on staff engaged in a train.

The poor driver.